Newsletter Term 2 2021 Term 3 Date Claimers Principal’s Report Greetings to you all and Term 3 Dates 12/07/21 – 17/09/21 welcome to our term two newsletter. This edition is larger P&C Meeting 19/07/21 23/08/21 than a puppy’s love as it bulges with the achievements of our Cairns Show students across all aspects of Public Holiday 16/07/21 our school. Also contained in this publication is an update on our improvement agenda, the Mini School Tablelands 03/08/21 – 05/08/21 envisaging process, our staff Cairns 17/08/21 – 19/08/21 news and the Cairns to Karumba Peninsula 17/08/21 – 19/08/21 Bike Ride. Hospitality in Practice 16/08/21 – 20/08/21 School Improvement We continue to refine our practices regarding our 2021 Year 11 &12 areas of improvement: • Student Free Day 03/09/21 Developing viable pathways for our students in further education, training or employment STEAM Camp 01/09/21 – 02/09/21 • Implementing a whole of school moderation 09/09/21 – 10/09/21 process • Providing timely, specific, understandable and Music Camp 13/09/21 – 14/09/21 actionable feedback to our students and home tutors. Please send any feedback that you have regarding this process to the Executive Services Team via [email protected]. I look forward to reading your feedback on our progress. Our drive at Cairns SDE is to ensure our students have a safe place to learn about our world, so that they can take their place in the world. Student News Further into this edition you will read about our student successes at recent events. Of particular note are the Words of Wisdom from our prep students, the challenging year six creative writing stories, and our student honours in sporting and language competitions. Updates from our Open Learning Campus also highlight the alternative programs that we provide at our school. Staff Updates These responses have been collated and will be New staff members to our school are presented in the presented at our next P&C Meeting. Staff News section. We are pleased to welcome such a diverse range of talent to our school. Recently all students were invited to respond to the following: I also wish to acknowledge the services of two teachers who are retiring: Ash Quested and Mary Lantman. Students: Describe what you would like our school to become in Ash has been employed with our Department of the next 4 years. Education since 13 July 1981. This incredible 40-year service is highly valued by our school community. On Be creative and imaginative e.g. painting, drawing, behalf of the Queensland Department of Education, I dancing, singing, poetry, short story, video, animation. thank Ash for his extraordinary dedication to the students he has taught throughout his tenure. His This opportunity is open to all students and details have experience and wisdom will be missed by everyone. All been sent out to them via email. A Samsung tablet will the very best to Ash and his family for the exciting new be awarded to the best entries from students in the adventures ahead. following categories: P-3, 4-6, 7-10 and 11-12. Student responses are to be sent to [email protected]. Mary has been a teacher of Italian at our school since 2015. She also taught for an extended period in a When these responses are collated, they will be number of Catholic Schools in Cairns. Mary is a highly distributed to the broader school community so that it valued member of our staff and will be sadly missed by can spark your imagination. A survey that contains the us all. We thank Mary for her hard work and dedication aforementioned questions, will then be sent to staff and and we wish Mary and her family all the very best for the parents/carers. Just a reminder that our visioning next adventures. process involves the following four-step plan: Developing a Shared Vision 1. Understanding our school’s context and the At our recent Biannual Forum, participants were invited values that we hold dear to respond to a number of probing questions. These 2. Collaborating to review our vision and values included: 3. Aligning our vision and actions 1. We will show care by… 4. Reflecting, recognising and refreshing our 2. Regarding how we teach/deliver school. a. Teachers will teach… b. Home tutors will deliver… Community Engagement 3. We will learn about… We have reached action stations for the 2021 Cairns to a. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Karumba Bike Ride and commence the ride on Histories and Cultures by doing what? Saturday 26 June. This is our P&C’s major fundraising b. Asia and Australia’s Engagement with event of the year. You can check out how to support the Asia by doing what? ride by visiting the C2K website. If you would like to c. Sustainability by doing what? leave a donation you can visit our Team Cairns SDE d. New subject areas such as… 2021 page and complete the details. 4. Our infrastructure will… 5. Our partnerships for: I wish you all a safe and happy winter vacation. During a. In-reach will… this holiday period I hope you are able to restore and b. Outreach will… rejuvenate in readiness for our term three activities. I c. Excursions will… look forward to seeing some of you on the bike ride and 6. Our technology will… as usual I hope that I am able to stay upright on my bike a. Our current values are listed below. rather than ‘turtle up’ in the mud, sand or gravel, which Please indicate if we should is my usual trick . keep/remove/edit: i. Productive partnerships Kind regards ii. Wellbeing of all iii. Open communication Andrew Oliver iv. Field services Principal v. Flexible, individualised learning vi. High expectations b. Are there any values we should add or remove? Parent Liaison Officer Hello to all our Cairns SDE Families Welcome to the end of Term 2; we are now 50% of the way through the school year! You’ve done a great job this far, so hopefully you are feeling confident and able to relax a little over the holidays! Just a few quick updates on what has been going on. Community Engagement Events Week 1: Let’s Connect – Peninsula A very busy start to the Term, with a wet and wild trip up to Musgrave for some of our staff. Although I did not attend, the feedback from staff and families was fantastic. Everybody especially loved their Tie-Dye and Mosaic creations. Week 6: Annual Camp Week Home Tutors were invited to attend a range of sessions Great work families and staff of Cairns SDE team! Have at the Cairns SDE Campus including an Art Resin Class, a safe and happy holiday break. the Bi-Annual Forum, Baking for the C2K Bike Ride and more. A big thank you to all who attended and I hope To every Home Tutor, Parent or Carer, please feel free we can keep working together to provide something to contact me on 4080 9208 or [email protected] meaningful and memorable for our next events. Crystal Stanley, Next on the List Parent Liaison Officer • Planning for Mini School Home Tutor Sessions Student News Prep Words of Wisdom "Why do you love your mum?" In this term's Words of Wisdom segment, Prep teachers asked our students two questions. Their responses are • “I love my mum because she looks after me and below. makes my jeans warm in the morning” – Zac • “I love my mum because she gives me big huggles” – Chelsea • “Because my mum always cares for me” – Lola • “I love my mum because she makes yummy food and she loves me very much” – Lorelei • “Because she has great hugs and makes good food. My favourite is spaghetti” – Tiann "How do you know if you have had a good day?" • “If you go to bed smiling” – Jackson • “Happy and can ride my two-wheeler” – Colby • “When I have a good dinner and smile and eat Stay tuned for the next instalment of Words of Wisdom. dessert” – Tiann • “Because I feel happy” – Lorelei • “Playing with my friends and I am happy” – Chelsea • “Because you are really dirty from all the fun in the yards” – Zac • “You get to go for a bike ride” – Bailey Year 6 Creative Writing Stories Wraith gently reminded Honor of when he beat his Thank you to our Year 6 students for sharing their father in the annual dragon race and that memory creative writing stories. See below from Macario, Kirra, reminded Honor of what he wanted to become. Before Jonah, Surya and Darcy. his dad died, his father always said, “Never forget you are the strongest you and no less.” Honor was able to overcome the seven dragons with the help of Wraith’s power, but that only got them out of his body. Their souls were still there. Wraith could only do so much to try and weaken the dragon souls, but he was too weak. So, it was all up to Honor to kill the souls forever. Honor tried to cast binding spells, but none of them worked! He tried to weaken them, but he was not able to do much either. The twins combined their power to complete the binding spell together, and became more powerful than Twin Dragons by Macario R (Year 6) anything you would ever know and ended up defeating Long ago there was a war between the dragon the seven dragons forever and then the kingdom was kingdoms; after the seven dragons started to attack happy once again.